Penn State names FSU's Barron its new president

ASSOCIATED PRESS

February 18, 2014 12:01 AM

ASSOCIATED PRESS

February 18, 2014 12:01 AM

Eric Barron, speaks to the media after being unanimously voted in to become the University's 18th president, Monday, Feb. 17, 2014 in State College, Pa. Barron replaces current Penn State President Rodney Erickson, who will retire this summer. (AP Photo/Ralph Wilson)FR78134 AP

STATE COLLEGE -- Eric Barron, a former professor and dean at Pennsylvania State University and president of Florida State University, was chosen Monday to lead the state's largest university as it continues grappling with fallout from the Jerry Sandusky scandal.

He'll bring with him the experience of managing a major state university known as much for its storied athletic program as its academic mission, as well as the fallout from a sex-abuse scandal with ties to big-time college football.

Penn State trustees unanimously approved the selection at a special meeting in State College after a 15-month search process in which university officials had kept the new president's identity secret.

Barron, who worked at Penn State for 20 years, including four as dean of its College of Earth and Mineral Sciences, will succeed President Rodney Erickson, who plans to retire when his contract expires in June. Barron is getting a five-year contract worth $1 million a year and will start in May, if not sooner.

Erickson, Penn State's former provost and executive vice president, was named president in November 2011 after then-president Graham Spanier was forced out after child molestation accusations against Sandusky, a former assistant football coach. Sandusky is serving a 30- to 60-year state prison sentence after being convicted in 2012 of 45 counts for the sexual abuse of 10 boys. Spanier was later charged in an alleged cover-up.

Barron called the Sandusky scandal painful and saddening but focused on the changes it has brought.

"What I see is an institution that has really taken control of compliance and is no doubt now a model university that I think a lot of other universities are going to look at and say this is the way we should be operating to make sure we do things the right way," he told reporters after the vote.

Barron is expected to lead Penn State through the trial of Spanier and two other former administrators.

Barron said he never met Sandusky while working at Penn State, and he sidestepped a question about what the university should do regarding the late former head coach Joe Paterno, still a sensitive topic on campus and among alumni.

"Whatever we do, we have to make sure that we do it with a high sense of dignity and honor," Barron said.

During his four years at Florida State, Barron has been an aggressive advocate for increased state funding and academic recognition for the university.

In 2006, Barron left State College to become dean of the Jackson School of Geosciences at the University of Texas at Austin. In 2008, Barron became director of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., where years earlier, he was a geology graduate student. Two years later, he moved on to Florida State, where he became the university's 14th president.